


who's gonna pray for your bleeding soul?

by trxshmxuth



Category: Sleeping Dogs (Video Games)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, M/M, kind of, look i really don't know what i'm doing writing for a dead fandom like, square enix why you gotta do my boy like that, this is purely for selfish purposes because i love my boy and they did wrong by him
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-29 07:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14468127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trxshmxuth/pseuds/trxshmxuth
Summary: The man looking back at him in the mirror every day is a stranger wearing his skin and he doesn’t know who he’s become any more than he can remember who he was before everything began.ORsleeping dogs but in a/b/o 'verse with some fix-its because my boy(s) deserved better





	who's gonna pray for your bleeding soul?

It’s been a while since the beginning of Wei’s temporary unofficial suspension, a while since the anti-Tong task force shitshow and Ming Ming Trin’s _untimely_ death. He’s getting restless, cooped up in his shitty apartment, stuck in a freeze of assignments. He hasn't even been assigned to any paperwork, for fuck's sake.

Wei’s itching to leave San Francisco, go somewhere, anywhere else. His skin feels too tight and the walls are closing in.

Which is why he practically leaps at the first chance he’s offered to get the hell out of dodge, why he eats from Pendrew’s proferred silver platter without a second thought. It doesn’t occur to him until much later that these are his childhood friends.

Wei spends the last night in his stuffy San Francisco apartment before he departs for Hong Kong reading over the files that Pendrew gave him, a pile of manila folders filled with the lives of people he never thought he’d see again stacked neatly in front of him, weighing heavy in his hands, and that's when it really hits him that he’s going back to where it all began.

Sitting on the one chair at the often unused kitchen table in his barren apartment with that stack of files in front of him, Wei begins to feel like himself again. That realization scares him more than anything because the man looking back at him in the mirror every day is a stranger wearing his skin and he doesn’t know who he’s become any more than he can remember who he was before everything began.

He distantly wonders if Hong Kong has changed or if it’s still exactly how it ossified itself in his memory; dirty concrete and loud neon and dark underbelly. The overwhelming noise of everything and nothing all at once. The chaos of millions, living and dying and coexisting and not existing all in one breathing, pulsating city.

He shakes himself from this encompassing, suffocating head space and opens the first file.

______

Seven folders in and it’s the usual gangland shit so far—nothing he wasn’t expecting: a bunch of powerful alphas full of drugs and rage and recklessness. He recognizes the name Winston Chu as he reads, memories of Old Prosperity bubbling to the forefront of his mind, and there are others he doesn’t recognize, like Conroy Wu.

Then there are the betas who are just as dangerous as alphas because they crave that same power and command. Conniving, slimy betas with a chip on their shoulder and everything to prove. Betas like Dogeyes. Most of the other betas are just low-life thugs; dangerous but only because of their tendency toward drugs and brutish violence. 

‘Till now he hasn’t seen anything that surprises him, but Wei feels his heart stutter and kick when he comes to a file labelled ‘Jackie Ma’ in neat black sharpie and for the first time in what feels like decades, Wei feels something other than blind anger coursing through his blood. He feels like he’s seen a ghost and he hasn’t even opened the file yet. He can’t quite pinpoint what he’s feeling but it’s alarmingly close to fear. Maybe he’s afraid of what he’ll read. Maybe he’s afraid that the person in the pages will be a stranger, someone he will never know as he once knew, wearing the face of an old friend. 

Jackie had been his best friend in Old Prosperity, the two of them thick as thieves and Wei had always hoped that Jackie would somehow break out of there, make a real life of his own. Wei knows better, though, knew better even then. But they did everything together. They were accomplices, teammates, _partners_. When Wei was ten and he got the news that his family was uprooting to a whole different country, nothing in his short time on earth had ever hurt as much as the moment he’d had to tell Jackie that he was leaving, probably forever. Leaving behind all that they knew, leaving behind Old Prosperity and Jackie and Winston and Dogeyes. Leaving them to fade from memory and scar like an old wound.

Wei had _loved_ Jackie, in the way that children do. In the way that they love so purely, so readily. It had been such an obvious love that it had never occurred to either of them that it wouldn’t be that way for the rest of eternity. Never occurred to them that they would grow older and more gnarled and twisted, like the blindly seeking roots of a tree. It never occurred to them that someday they might be outsiders in each other’s lives.

But that’s exactly what happened. It’s been eighteen long years and everything has changed. Now Wei’s a cop with a vendetta and he’s holding the life record of Jackie Ma—criminal, _stranger_ —in his hands.

Logically, Wei knows he’s being ridiculous, knows that he’s acting like a fool and he needs to get a hold of himself _right the fuck now_ , but it’s also finally sinking in that these are people he knows—well, knew. He knew them, before. Before everyone’s lives and the entire world went to hell. 

He breathes through his nose and opens the file. 

Source Codename SCOUNDREL  
Report submitted by Det. Raymond Mak

Subject: Jackie Ma  
DOB: 05/11/1985  
Alias: None  
Height: 5’ 6”  
Weight: 143 lbs.  
Sex: Male  
Gender: Beta-passing Omega 

Scoundrel reports that Jackie Ma is a low-level gang affiliate. Target knows several Water Street members, including Winston Chu, from childhood but is not considered part of the gang. Is not included in confidential planning or operations. Sometimes used as an errand boy.

Target frequently attempts to claim gang affiliations higher than he actually has, although it should be noted that target has connections with underground suppressant suppliers with the guise of running for drug racketeers on the side. It is inferred that these connections are how the target acquires enough suppressants under the table to keep Water Street members from discovering target’s true gender.

Use as infiltration asset questionable due to volatile gender concealment tactics and possible hostility from Water Street members if discovered. Given the target’s vulnerability and background with our asset, access to him should be relatively simple. It’s not clear, however, that the target can effect useful introductions on his own.

Serious consideration should be given using SCOUNDREL or another mid-level CI instead.




There’s a weight in Wei’s chest that wasn’t there before he read Jackie’s file. A weight that has everything to do with the words _beta-passing_ and _volatile_ and _hostility_ and _omega_. He leans back into the chair, heavy and suddenly feeling exhausted. Wei scrubs a hand over his face, through his hair and he carefully doesn’t look at the mugshot that’s paper-clipped to the inside of the file. He doesn’t want to see this Jackie, this stranger. Not right now.

A headache is beginning to build around a thousand racing thoughts and questions as Wei closes the folder and pushes away from the table. He goes through the motions of what passes for his evening routine—brush teeth, wash face, stare in mirror for a good ten minutes or so, lay in bed restlessly until sleep comes—on autopilot and Wei finds himself staring at the plain white ceiling through the darkness, thoughts still spilling over each other and drowning his mind.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -black sheep by metric plays on repeat-  
> nice
> 
> (look y'all  
> i'm too tired to be ashamed  
> for the like... three people in this fandom who are gonna see this okay
> 
> but also  
> i have five uni projects due this week what am i doing)


End file.
